What games are you playing?

[Bean]

Guess I should finally play this Fire Emblem: Three Hopes demo already, huh?

[Matthew_Coco]

Just been playing some Genesis games like Twinkle Tale, Panorama Cotton, and Rockman MegaWorld. (an objectively BETTER title than Megaman: The Wily Wars) Haven't been in the mood for RPGs recently which is weird. Guess it's all the stress.

[raekuul]

Bravely Default: broke the wind crystal. wish me patience (since I'm fighting Final Orthros onwards basically twice in rapid succession, the only difference is whether I'm on the false or true ending)

[BobisOnlyBob]

Bravely Default: broke the wind crystal. wish me patience (since I'm fighting Final Orthros onwards basically twice in rapid succession, the only difference is whether I'm on the false or true ending)

That route is the

alternate, cut-the-story short to confront the villain early

ending

[KobaBeach]

Chrono Trigger - Black Omen at 12000 BC. Almost everything else is done, every subquest and main story portion. It's time 2 fuck

[raekuul]

Bravely Default: broke the wind crystal. wish me patience (since I'm fighting Final Orthros onwards basically twice in rapid succession, the only difference is whether I'm on the false or true ending)

That route is the

alternate, cut-the-story short to confront the villain early

ending

what's funny is I forgot that the true ending has you fight That Person at the Pillar of Light instead of at the end of their own dungeon; they kicked my ass because Hasten World lets them Acedia+Flare every turn and Acedia bypasses everything except Stillness nullification. I need a different BP Sponge setup for exactly this one battle.

E: True Final Boss Obliterated. Strangely enough, he's susceptible to Hasten World shenanigans (his AI gets caught in a buff-spell loop, but the buffed spell isn't strong enough to outpace double Curaga) where his principal flunky would just eradicate you for your troubles.

[Bean]

A little Among Us before this summer of stuff shows up. That new TMNT beat-em-up's tomorrow!

[raekuul]

Bravely Second: Bravely running away from the Glanz Empire while we try to reawaken Tiz.

Wario Land: Jetless Low Coin went pretty well; I think next time I do it I'll add a "no Hearts Game and no purging" stipulation though so that I have to actually try and avoid coins; being able to throw away ten-coins kind of defeats the purpose of a Low Coin run and Hearts Game is just... I mean I'm getting better at it but it's still mostly just a coin sink.

[Crow]

not doing the diary thing like before but i did get back to aeterna noctis

very rusty and had to rewatch some of a cutscene compilation to get back up to speed but i still dig this one

the left half of the map very much feels like it's just devolved into a platforming gauntlet with less exploration and enemies that often do not feel worth fighting but every area so far has still felt unique in some way and that's commendable

ironically the upgrade to go into "dark zones" is a blessing in disguise because, while you can't use your bow in it, that means you don't have to worry about teleport platforming either, the one element of the platforming that never has and probably never will feel great. so uh. thanks i guess, game?

i have every ability now, evidently, so i guess i could theoretically go back and clean up all the areas i haven't yet but i kinda want to get the left half of the map first-time scanned at the very least so i know roughly what's left. somehow still only at like 52ish% because this game is just bonkers huge

[Bean]

Went through TMNT: Shredder's Revenge the last couple days. It's a pretty decent beat em up. Apparently it's six players online, so that's neat. Only did a two-player local run with my bro. We had some fun, although there were a couple of crashes in the latter portion of the game. Might've been due to a power outage, but it's okay. The game autosaves frequently, so we didn't lose any progress. That includes KO count. Go figure.

Fun time. Wouldn't put it on the level of Turtles in Time, but some of you that play it might differ. I enjoyed it at the very least, and bringing in the old 80s voice actors for the Turtles to reprise their roles was a neat touch.

[raekuul]

Bravely Second: Time to set sail for Harena I guess.

Final Fantasy: The crystal of Earth has been relit. Lich was... not difficult? Like if he had focused on attacking my monk I would have been up a creek since that was half of my damage output. The problem was I got down to B5F and got petrified with no Gold Needles so I had to go all the way back out and sail all the way back to Alfheim because Melmond has no item shop. And now I have 61 Gold Needles because the Cocatrices didn't appear a second time.

Wario Land: Decided to do a greedy 31-exit treasureless run this time: get All The Coins (but no gambling to try and inflate the coins). I hit a sudden and inexplicable wall with Course 25 (the boss level for Stove Canyon) which this level isn't usually that bad for me (because I practiced the hell out of this stage at one point) but all of a sudden I can't play for beans.

Might and Magic 6 - Skill Emphasis Mod + Quest Item Randomizer: So this combination of mods has a really steep difficulty curve at the start, but once you hit level 10 and start getting your Expert skills it starts to level off. I'm up to level 20 and need to start running the Castle Ironfist dungeons (there's four of them but I'm hilariously ill-equipped for one of them)

[KobaBeach]

I got the Black Omen ending of Chrono Trigger and it made the whole game worth it.

Completely forgot that you could just focus everything on the Right Pod during Lavos 3 and it'd be fine, just make sure to knock down Left Pod sometimes. That's memory loss for you. Also Confuse didn't seem like a physical attack to me. This was the one battle I actually went all out with the big dong Techs (Confuse, Uzzi Punch, Leap Slash) and guzzling down Full Ethers so it was worth it. Did roughly 3500 a round.

I'll try to get the other endings later.

------------------------------------------

Trying to clear out the Tower of Death in Epsis in Lufia: The Legend Returns. However, I did not restart it, I'm just hunting down Ancient Texts to have everyone properly decked out for battles, because I feel like that's hindering me as well. I don't think leveling up Spiritual Force and core stats alone is gonna fix everything, honestly...

Floors 2-4 are already done, gotta clear out floors 6-9, specifically: One Silhouette for Dei, Two Fire Attacks for Dei and Randolph, and One Persuade for Melphis (though I don't really use her offensively). I've also changed the Party Formation to the following:

Mousse Aima Wain
Randolph Melphis Seena
Dei

Seena and Melphis may be swapped, I'm not sure? Anyway this should give Wain extra coverage due to all the Defense and HP, while also shielding Randolph from the front line (not that it should do much because vertical attacks and all), and yet still allowing him to attack and use Magic if necessary due to the girls' Magic Power attribute, as well as Mousse's berserker status, being a Capsule Monster and all. Dei should also be giving Randolph some extra Speed and MP.

I'll try to experiment with Aima and Wain too since they're my main hitters, and see if Dei's any use so far, especially due to Dei having R. Blade (Return? Full Health - Current Health = Total Damage, might need to go to Tower of Illusion for it later?) and later, Stealth Hit (DMG x2, overwhelms DEF) once we go through Copley Forest, Vital Aim (tone down enemy stats by one eighth, 12.5%) once we clear out Tower of Illusion. Silhouette might also come in handy (enemy party-wide normal DMG), as both Wain and Dei can learn it, as well as Double Kick (double attack to one enemy, Wain can't learn this one). Wain also has Head Crush (deal 1/8 of full HP worth of damage) and Aima should get Final Dance (1/4 of Full HP worth of damage) later.

Fuck I'm getting into this game again.

-----------------------------------------

Lastly, I'm grinding the current three Jobs to level 5 in Bravely Default: Monk, White Mage, and then later Black Mage before hopefully beating Heinkel maybe tomorrow? I'll try to keep track of JP profits through out the game with the help of some guides to find the best places to grind. Gotta keep track of Freelancer to see if it's a bit underleveled rn to level that up to at least Lv5, Dungeon Master is super important.

[raekuul]

MM6 SkEm Randomized: The game doesn't want to give me any actual keys, so I have a bunch of dungeons that are clear-except-for-one-check. The randomizer probably stuck a bunch of them behind the Kriegspire Temple of Baa, but because of the Skill Emphasis mod that's a remarkably bad idea to challenge at the moment. I'm going to be working on clearing overland Silver Cove and working on two of the dungeons there (Silver Helm Stronghold and The Monolith) next.

[waddledoodles]

Embarrassingly close to 100 hours into The Great Ace Attorney... pretty sure a good chunk of those hours is just having it on in the background.

[raekuul]

Bravely Second: Oh right "suggested levels" are there for a reason.

[thatguyif]

Been busy with a new job that started this week, but last week Steam had its Summer Next Fest last week. I went over the top and downloaded 28 demos, of which 26 I could actually run. Read about them below, in spoilered texts because none of you want to go through 26 paragraphs of text, really:

Slayers X:

So this was a big surprise, to get this so early. This is an FPS spinoff of, of all things, that endearing homage to late-90s Internet, Hypnospace Outlaw. The backstory is that Zane Lofton, the teenage asshole you dealt with in Hypnospace (who presumably survived the Mindcrash that occurred because you banned his sorry ass on New Year's Eve 1999), is now in his 30s and finds his long lost attempt to make a video game based on his teenage comic book, Slayers X. It is, as noted, an extremely alpha version of the game, with only one level shown, and a lot of weirdness at play due to early development (such as menus that don't work well with UW monitors). Still, it gets its point across as another homage to the late 90s childhood, in particular being a teen that's REALLY into nu-metal. It wears that aesthetic: The trashy nu-metal music from Seepage, the game practically being on the Build engine (the engine of such prestigious games as Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and William Shatner's TekWar), the enemies being either ripoffs of Doom enemies or just chunky clumps of living shit, the trashy setting (the level being a sewer), the cringy teenage hacker bravado (though surprisingly without the teenage misogyny), the half-baked attempts at being Duke. It met expectations, for all intents and purposes. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Master Key:

Super minimalist Zelda-style game where you play a fox (not a furry fox, just a fox) seeking out...four keys? You start with the eponymous key serving as your sword. The demo showcases the first dungeon, which gives you a hookshot. I had a lot more issues with my controller's lack of a dead zone than I usually do with games like this, and it felt uneven in places. Still, it was pretty cute and fun for the most part. It looks to be a very short game, given there were only four marked dungeons? But I could be wrong.

Pirates Bay:

Clever name, I'll give them that. This is another low-poly pirate game. Not as much fun as Bucanneers from earlier this year, honestly. Mostly focused on the being a pirate part. Don't like that to get work such as bounties, you have to pay for it though. That I find ridiculous, especially when you start with a toy wooden sword as a weapon. Many of the non-town islands have constantly respawning skeletons that, even with lock-on, are a pain to get rid of. Furthermore, no naval combat. But worst of all? Moving your ship is done completely manually, in that you have to go to each part of the ship (anchor, two separate sets of sails, steering) to get the ship moving or to stop it, all by yourself. That's a god-damn pain in the ass, especially when the ship goes full speed right when you weigh anchor at full sail, and you have to rush to stop it near an island. I feel like it's meant to be more of a multiplayer game? I dunno.

Fech the Ferret:

A demo that was put out WAY too early. Seems like a cool idea: You're a ferret running through some weird low-poly techno-forest scape. It has the vibes of a good platformer. Problem was, I ran into a bunch of bugs quickly, many of which resulted in a hardlock. I didn't last 10 minutes in that game due to the bugs. Shame really, it's got potential as a fun little platformer. Maybe a later demo will fix these.

WHATEVER:

Shortest demo I've played that wasn't broken. Playing off the whole Ever Given incident last year that blocked the Suez, you're piloting a container ship across a really distorted version of said canal. It's like one of those racing games that focus on powersliding, except much slower and the cost of screwing up is running aground and getting stuck. That said, you're also Dom from Fast and Furious Dom Torretino, who would never turn his back on family. Looks like it'll be a meme-heavy game just on that alone. Whether the memes will already be extremely dated (like that Dom bit) by the time it's released, on the other hand, is another matter.

MISC.: A Tiny Tale:

Okay, this one I really liked. A really charming platformer game that really pays homage to the Chibi-Robo! series. You play this tiny robot named Buddy in a post-humanity setting, and you go out exploring with your...buddy, Bag Boy, which the game really goes out of its way to suggest there's something different about him (along with his cat Flick). There's a villain that's introduced in the second chapter, Atom, who looks like a 50s toy robot, but I get the feeling Bag Boy is being emphasized because he might do a traitor on you later in the game. The world aesthetics call to mind Pikmin, but it's far more robust and beautiful. Gameplay also apes Super Mario Odyssey a little bit, though it's not too bad about it. There's a lot of life already being shown in each chapter, with the different quests for each of these robots, and Buddy is certainly a charming character on his own. My only serious complaint about the game was the frame rate was ridiculously high at 350 FPS in normal gameplay. Which would be okay except that it made movement controls much more sensitive than they needed to be. Still, this was a delightful game to play. I may wishlist.

Cultic:

An interesting FPS. The style it conveys is definitely mid-90s FPS in the vein of Quake with a bit of Build engine tendencies involved. The theme is a more grounded early Quake/DOOM, though without much of the religious symbolism. Seems like you're meant to be an investigator trying to resolve an old spate of violence involving a dark cult of some kind (not sure if more Satanic or Lovecraftian...game didn't really give a sense of either direction). One nice touch is expanding on weapon use outside the usual confines of select weapon and use with being able to throw and then just shoot TNT without having to light it. Still, was quite annoyed at the lack of weapon select through the mouse wheel. Interesting game, though not something I would go out of my way to play.

Diluvian Ultra:

This is a game that has a lot of promise, but also flaws. It's an FPS that, like Cultic, takes cues from 90s FPSes, though I suppose in this case it leans more in the System Shock direction in the way it handles sprites and the whole plot/theme: While there's this medieval vibe going on, I'm certain it's set in the far future, based in some weird ship launched from Mars, and you're this lich-like "Prince" trying to call in the other "Princes" as humans invade the ship with machines. While dark in theory, it's a very colorful game, all things considered, and it has a unique and interesting moveset. However, it also suffers from a lack of clear direction, and the art at times was extremely overwhelming. I eventually stopped playing because I was getting tired of both being lost (and not in a good way) and getting stuck in areas I shouldn't be getting stuck. I also didn't like the whole "death takes away experience points" deal, which is really unnecessary and antiquated. It's unfortunate, because it is an interesting game all in all otherwise.

Steelborn:

A game that could've been good, but its controls beg to differ. Basically, it's an action platformer with a two-tiered approach similar to Panzer Paladin: You fight in your big mech, then as the pilot when there are areas too small for the mech to fit in. Cool idea, and the art was pretty decent, if generic (much like the story: Go to a far-flung research base to find out why everyone is dead). Problem is the game wants you to play with keyboard and mouse, when it feels like it should be a twin-stick game. On top of that, the keyboard controls don't really work how they're supposed to? Eventually, I died in a cave (presumably before a boss that would certainly end the demo), and when I tried to load the last save, game crashed. I'll use that an excuse to bail.

Rail Route:

This one's I mostly enjoyed, though I felt like I'm not exactly the best audience for it. It's a train dispatch simulator in Early Access. I played a Story Mode style expansion, The Story of Jozic, which centers on you being a new train dispatcher in Prague being mentored by the eponymous veteran dispatcher, who was also a train conductor at one point in his life. It's a very minimalist kind of sim, very chill in many ways, though it's very easy to get lost in all the lines. I have no serious complaints about it, it's definitely good. Just...not sure if my way of observing things works in that sort of environment. Shame really, I like trains.

Astronite:

Yet another game I was able to finish very quickly without there being bugs. It's a Metroidvania that recalls Gato Roboto a lot with the black-and-white 8-bit style and the "crash land on an alien planet" plot (though supposedly the planet you crash on was originally your homeworld). It seemed fine? Problem is it was INCREDIBLY short for a demo. Got to the start, suffered a Death-style removal of items, ventured the correct direction to find my gun, faced a boss that was eh...then the demo ends! It took me less than 20 minutes to finish the demo. Makes it really hard to give a proper assessment on the game's viability. I feel like the only complaint I had was that the gun's rate of fire was pretty low (and there's no auto fire button). But still...not enough to say whether I want this game or not.

Swordship:

Another relatively short game. It's a shmup...except you don't shoot, you just avoid. You're a smuggler sending cargo from underwater cities to those banished to the (uninhabitable) surface. While you can't actively kill enemies, you can passively kill them via having them hit each other. Has a few roguelike elements, including upgrading your ship with each death, building experience, and so on. It's very fast-paced and very much in the vein of arcade shmups from the early 90s, where enemies come in waves and set pieces. There's a bit of randomness to it. Not my style of play (don't like super fast stuff), but it was still kind of fun, and I feel like people who are more into this sort of thing will enjoy it a lot.

GigaSword:

Okay, I didn't expect to enjoy this game as much as I did. But I did. This game is a Metroidvania, more compartmentalized than most (as far as I could tell, though that may have been the demo being a demo). You play some kind of orphan in the midst of a cataclysm wielding Cloud's Buster Sword. Unlike Final Fantasy VII, though, you wield such a giant sword the way normal people (or even strong people) would. You drag it along the floor (how it doesn't dull the blade is beyond me), do a three-hit combo that's really slow, and do a diving attack that helps defeat certain enemies. You don't jump particularly high, and you have a dodge roll. However, in a twist, you can just...put the sword down. Now you move a LOT better, including jumping much higher, but you have no means to defend yourself. The devs managed to handle this surprisingly well, with different puzzles centered around putting your sword down and moving around. Helping matters is that there are certain blocks that function as sieves or elevators for your sword, and your sword also functions like moving blocks (which can be moved by sticking your sword in them). This demo was a lot of fun. Another game I will probably wishlist.

Being A Penguin:

Okay, this was a cute little demo. More or less, it's a penguin walking simulator. But it's rather charming. You play a rather unique penguin who has trouble fitting in with the rest of the herd. You waddle around, talk to other animals to understand what makes them happy, gather ice cubes to make an igloo. It's extremely chill (no pun intended), and adorable at times. Not much else to say, really.

BREADSKATE:

Maaaaaaan, now this is a game I *wanted* to be good. But the demo is really half-baked, which is really sad. I mean, the premise is so perfect: You're a living loaf of bread, the last of your kind, and you have to defeat ducks. WITH GUNS. How? By SKATEBOARDING, how else? Pulling tricks, doing combos, running grinds, shooting the ducks with toast! And you're helped by a duck with a little hat named Gus. It's a beautiful setup!

What ruins it? THE CONTROLS. The devs made the game keyboard and mouse only. Why escapes logic. From my understanding, they tried to emulate the style of EA Skate's controls, where tricks are done through simple movement rather than executing moves ala fighting games (i.e. the THPS method). But it just doesn't really work when done on keyboard. Not helping matters is that keyboard movement is extremely sensitive. So if you, say, enter a tunnel, and trying to make a slight adjustment, you'll just run straight into a wall. If they can get proper controller support up and running, and make movement less sensitive overall, they might have a chance. But I can't on good conscience support this game in its current state. It ain't baked, it's very doughy.

Deja Drift:

Not sure why I picked this one up. The style, probably? Anyway, it's a drift-based driving game kind of in the style of Trackmania, but having a 80s wireframe aesthetic. It wasn't too bad for a demo to showcase what the game could do. It's very simplistic, but does some interesting things (including a "parade" level where copies of yourself develop every 5 seconds and start to muck around if you stay in one area too long). At the same time, realized it really wasn't for me pretty early on. Still, it might be good?

Gastro Force:

A demo that was longer than it had any right to be. In theory, it's an FPS in the style of Doom, but in practice it's a dungeon crawler with Doom sensibilities. You're apparently a space commando whose specialty is to blow up monsters that eat space stations, but that didn't really show in the demo. Instead, it just a very repetitive game, with 9 levels of meandering corridors with various ambushes that popped up whenever you did something, especially in the later stages. Then there was a boss fight with a Mancubus clone from Doom II that summoned "high-level" enemies. Whatever the premise was, it definitely wasn't on display in this game. On top of all that, the controls and collision were jank, as you could easily stick to walls. That made said boss, who could be easily routed when you figure out where to hit him and just script-lock him, more tedious than it should've been. Hard pass.

Anger Foot:

Now god damn, that was a good demo. This game got Superhot. Superhot. Superhot...errr, sorry, in its veins. Made by the guys who made Broforce, you're a green-skinned goober who gets his favorite kicks (named Arthur) stolen for fucking with a criminal gang. So how do you respond? Kicking their fucking teeth in! While you can pick up guns with limited ammo, the real fun is just kicking your way through everything. Kick a door down, kill a chump. Kick a guy's face in, get his gun, then just keep kicking while shooting some more chumps. You get new kicks based on quasi-cheevos that boost your abilities and adapt to your play style. And then the demo ends with you fighting a converted police van/copter. How? By kicking it, how else? The game is super rad, and it has some Hotline Miami vibes (though without the acid tripping). I have no real complaints about it. It's just great. Definitely will consider wishlisting it.

Agent 64 - Spies Never Die:

Prolly the most divisive demo I've heard about, I express ambivalence. I lack the romanticism/nostalgia of playing GoldenEye, which is clearly what this game is sending up (I had a Saturn, then a Playstation growing up). The demo only had one mission to speak of, with objectives varying based on difficulty. It wasn't a bad mission by any stretch, as it served to showcase the gameplay. Control was a little janky in parts, but nothing too iffy. I suspect a big reason for the divisiveness was simply that this was a single-player mission, and I recall a lot of people loved GoldenEye for the multiplayer. So I suspect there was something to that. Alas, it does what it set out to do, I think.

Evasive Maneuvers:

Uuuugh. This game looks like my jam: Flying in space, very colorful style, so on. Launch it, and I find it's multiplayer ONLY. Boooooooo! And of course, there were no servers actively hosting at that point. So that was kind of pointless.

Fashion Police Squad:

Okay, this was fun. Another FPS that uses spritework elements, a bit on the low-poly end. Not violent at all, however...unless you consider people roasting your kitbashed anime/nerd t-shirt and thrift store pants getup to be literal violence (or get all performatively angry toward the very word "cop" because you're that self-absorbed), in which case people oughta laugh at you more. It's a game where you're a fashion cop that needs to deal with fashion crimes all throughout the city, and there be many fashion crimes! From saggy pants to dull and bad-fitting suits. And your weapons include an old-school sewing machine gun that shoot pins and needles, a paint shotgun that absorbs garish colors, and the Belt of Justice that also functions as a grappling hook. The devs actually do something clever in the FPS sense, in that fashion criminals are only weak to a specific weapon. It makes the game more interesting to juke around and get the right weapon in play, though I can very easily see it being a clusterfuck on higher difficulties. Still, it looked great and colorful. My only complaints, really, were the finicky melee controls and occassional weird platforming, as well as the JoJo references (I get it, Araki's big on fashion...still, it's too memey for its own good). Still, think I'll wishlist this.

Underwater Space:

Another good game with potential, though I'm worried about some of the things NOT shown. It's an aquatic game, but what was shown felt more in line to space combat games like Freelancer. Which is just fine, since I like that stuff! Seems to be set in an underwater world of sorts. The devs took great pains to suggest this was an early stage of the game, and should be treated as a tech demo. Fine, but I liked what I played regardless...at least, once I moved to keyboard and mouse control ala Freelancer. It played pretty smoothly, and I had quite a bit of fun out of it. Still, I saw some worrying signs of "survival game" involved, including base building and crafting. I really don't care for survival-style games, which is why, despite the massive progress they made, I refuse to play No Man's Sky. If they dropped the survival element, I'd be a happy pilot. I'll wishlist, but only tentatively.

Grand Theft Gato Vice Kitty:

Okay, this demo took longer than I wanted it to. Still, it was an all right demo. And I say that as someone who finds cats to be abominations, their owners (with some exceptions) inherently untrustworthy. As the name's punnage suggests, it's an open world style game where you're a cat probably causing trouble. However, while you can drive cars around and attack rats, the GTA connections are a bit on the weak side. But there are many many many jokes and puns that take its place. Too many, probably. It also kind of controlled weird, especially climbing walls (geometry chicanery) and using some of the items. It did set up an interesting plot involving a device that either the two factions mentioned in the game (the Meowfia and the Purrlice) want. But we only get hints of those two factions in action during the demo. It'll definitely be an interesting game to watch, but it's certainly not my kind of game.

Aegis Descent:

Decent demo, though with a bug or two. It's an FPS roguelike of sorts. Set in an alternate universe WWII, you find some alien force invading a secret weapons facility run by the Allies, and you're on some mech named the Aegis to enter the facility and recover the tech. It was pretty fun to play in the brief time I played it. However, for some reason the game didn't recognize the right click on my mouse button for the alt-weapon fire. Recognizing that, I didn't go more than one round on this. Also, there were times where it felt like I wasn't really in control of transitions: In some cases I just got shot forward without time to recover. The voice acting was a bit distracting, but it was otherwise all right. I like the idea, but am uncertain whether I'd want to wishlist it.

The Pegasus Expedition:

Prolly should've taken longer with this demo, but time was short. A grand strategy game in the 4X style, it takes a lot of cues from the Post-Civs (Alpha Centauri and Beyond Earth), but there's an actual plot in play: You're forced to flee Earth, with humanity in tow, escaping some massive force called the Collossals, to the Pegasus (Spheroid? Irregular?) Galaxy. Demo starts early-mid-game, in that you've just beaten off the leading power in said Galaxy on accident and caused their fragmentation. The plot also adds a bit of linearity to such games I'm not sure about. I played about 3 turns of it. Feels like a Civ, though it also feels a lot like Stellaris in its planetary planning. Also has auto-battles...that don't work that great. I think. I'm feeling a big maybe on this one.

Sail Forth:

A game I already wishlisted in the Winter 2022 Next Fest, they delievered a new demo, suggesting an imminent release. They start small, then go into what looks to be early-mid game, when you have a full crew and a ship with some real firepower. A lot of the minigames in the previous demo are actually winnable, and they're pretty fun to play. The game also briefly showcases the research tree to some degree. Demo ends a bit too soon, in that you meet a big boss but get no chance to fight it. Still, I stand by this game being as good as it was when I first went around it.

Wishlists
MISC. A Tiny Tale
GigaSword
Anger Foot
Fashion Police Squad
Underwater Space*
Sail Forth (Previously Wishlisted)
*May withdraw

Good In Their Own Right
Slayers X
Master Key
Rail Route
Swordship
Grand Theft Gato Vice Kitty
Aegis Descent
The Pegasus Expedition

Links to Steam store pages, as of this writing all but one (Evasive Maneuvers) still have their demos up.

We now return to your regularly scheduled bullshit, already in progress...

[HatKid]

Haven't been gaming much lately on account of a full time job and house maintenance, as well as my own creative pursuits (drawing and writing) but I have been slowly going through Trails of Cold Steel on NG++ Nightmare mode in the hopes of getting platinum. The only trophy I'm worried about is the one for opening every chest. I made a list of every chest in the game and I've been checking off every one when I open it but I'm still paranoid I'm going to accidentally mark one down I didn't open or I somehow didn't write one into my list or something
If I somehow do miss one, I'm not sure I'll be playing the game again any time soon. Or if I do it may be on the PS4 version (digital since the American physical copies are extremely expensive), but I also don't even have that lol.

Currently on Chapter 4, finished day 1 of the field study.

[Matthew_Coco]

Started JUMP 1/2 recently. Pretty chill, I love it.

Also started Chrono Trigger finally. Having fun!

[KobaBeach]

Arc the Lad III: Did Jobs 7-20 (job 5 vii), went from Forestamore to North Sularto and did the Forestamore Guild's Disc 1 Wanted Monsters, not in that order. My friend Ivan told me there's a proper synthesis guide now so I might abuse that, he had pretty good stuff when he reached Paysus. My patience wrt Lutz has waned over the past few months.

At least from this point onwards, most of his sass (most of the problems, or "sheltered white teenage cishet kid" vibes, being exclusive to the English script) is rebuked by Cheryl wanting to nearly murder him at all times, she's the Shadow or Rutee of the team. The Shadow comparison is especially good even if she came first, SA2 being 2001, AtL3 being like 1999? Like, she's even the gun expert, despite being like... 15? Still have to deal with how Working Designs handled Lavender (crossdresser/drag queen/okama NPC who is bad at personal space). I mean WD is from Cali, so white liberal Californians y'all.

Oh and I also kind of cheated in the counting minigame to get the Slime card during Hunter Job #20 by counting with Notepad and occasionally pausing with Mednafen's hotkey for that. But I feel like anyone can do that if they keep up the tempo and jot it down in a small literal note pad or scrap of paper, just do like

Code: Select all

crate I I I X I
jar I I I I
flower I I I X X

Sadly I don't really have much paper readily available for me, there is a reason I draw mostly digital on CSP and it is that finding my sketchpad is a pain in the dick (also colors are easier to make look better in digital, though I still haven't started practicing that aspect).

[raekuul]

four weeks of no switch aaaa

Bravely Second: Grinding at the bottom of the Ba'al Crater before beginning our battle with the Ba'alim. (Or continuing, in Magnolia's case).

Might and Magic 6 Randomizer with Skill Emphasis mod: I keep finding excuses to not raid dungeons that I'm actually supposed to be raiding on the grounds that this is when I'm supposed to have been raided other dungeons that I can't make any headway in because SkEm lifted everything upwards too far exactly to prevent me from doing dungeons that are that far above my level.

[KobaBeach]

Wizardry I SNES: Levelling up in B1F, gotta read the FAQs more in-depth. Early Wizardry is ridiculously bullshit so I'm just savescumming despite it being against The Order of CRPG Cuntlords' takes on How To Enjoy Games Properly, which include brilliance such as "savescumming ruins the game" and "grinding to deal with difficulty ruins the game".

With this nerf it actually feels enjoyable to me, similar to SMT. I guess I just don't really like blobbers, at least the really old asshole ones? Megami Tensei 2 SNES I could perfectly deal with. I am sadly using premade maps on StrategyWiki though because I currently do not have access to graph paper and I feel like it would be wasteful if I used it.

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Tenchi Muyo Game-hen: I did everything in the like. Masaki Estate? Recruited Ryu-Ohki, Katsuhito and Yukinojou and all (I'm not levelling up ukinojoe), recruited Washu in the storage in Kusumi's spaceship and I'm heading to like Block A. Simplistic SRPG, enjoyable for a few days worth of gayming.

My main party so far is just Tenchi, Ayeka, Mihoshi, Katsuhito. Very much a fan of how Ayeka manages to shove herself in every battle by being The One With The Heal Move, bold move in a waifu-based piece of media. I have no attachment to any of these characters outside of reading the TVTropes page earlier today, might watch the OVAs and both anime series soon though.

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Paper Mario: Did all of the prologue, pretty fun and adorable game, but I wish the timed hits got introduced earlier. It feels like Japanese devs like to hinder the player to "make it easier to understand for newbies" like how Mega Man X didn't have the dash until halfway through Chill Penguin and that is a bad choice to make imo. Finally downloaded a new N64 emulator though (Mupen fork, Rosalie's Mupen GUI), m64p stopped working because I can't use Vulkan.

[Bean]

Is it Claude time? I think it's Claude time. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes.

[raekuul]

Picked up Kirby's Star Stacker; It's a neat little puzzle game. I keep getting RNG'd to death on Super Hard but that's probably to be expected - there's no real penalty for failure other than having to start the round over.

[thatguyif]

So it's been a little bit, but I have continued my playthrough of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and have completed the original trilogy in Story Mode. Overall, I think Story Mode's a bit uneven?

On the one hand, they did certain things right. One of the issues about Complete Saga was that levels could be extremely long. Good levels could be forgiven for their length, but then you had the Dagobah level in Episode V, which was long-winded, tedious, and constantly looping the same small bits of the soundtrack because bats kept respawning. Skywalker Saga has kept levels short (save maybe the opening level of Episode V, which did feel a little on the long side), and cuts through the story with open world segments. Dagobah, for example, was really short, which was really nice (no level, merely open-world segments with a boss fight). So it flowed a lot better, especially if you just kind of ignore the big open world segments.

On the other hand, I'm let down by the vehicle levels, which makes me sad. There were already signs of it in the prequel trilogy: Only dedicated space combat levels were the Battle Over Naboo, Obi-Wan's little cat-and-mouse game with Jango Fett over Geonosis, and...that's it. Original trilogy only does slightly better: Death Star Trench Run (which felt weird), Battle of Hoth (which may not count since it's on a planet), and the Escape from Hoth. No Battle Over Coruscant from the prequel trilogy (which was one of the big highlights for me in Complete Saga), no Battle Over Endor with the Rebel Fleet in a melee with the Imperial Fleet followed by the Death Star II Core Run. The game tries to make up for this by having random space battles, including against capital ships, in the open world segments, but they always feel so...empty, for lack of a better word?

Still, game redeems itself a little by introducing the Scavenger class before Episode VII, allowing you full access to the class. Granted, it was through the second-to-last level of Episode VI, but still, it's the thought that counts. Scavenger is surprisingly fun: It's kind of like a character you see in a Metroidvania, in that its unique abilities are as much about exploration as they are about combat. I'm annoyed that these abilities are unlocked so far into Story Mode (chronologically), but I still enjoy playing the character.

A question that opens up as I move through cleaning up the open-world segments from the original trilogy as well as those segments in the prequel trilogy that required Scavenger: There are 13 worlds/17 areas combined in the original and prequel trilogy. There are 10 worlds/11 areas in the sequel/Disney trilogy. Given this latter trilogy has much more weight to it, I wonder if the reason there was so much crunch put into this game was that it was never meant to be this game first and foremost: They originally were developing Lego Star Wars: The Disney Trilogy, with it laying the groundwork for an eventual Skywalker Saga game. Then upper management/Disney (via Lucasfilm) demanded the scope widen to be Skywalker Saga, but only 60-80% of the time they needed to make it a compelling game. It's worth pondering. Overall, I'm at 48.88%.

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I'm also playing Final Fantasy V: Pixel Remaster for the Four Job Fiesta. My team, Normal Run, is Knight/Summoner/Ninja/Samurai. This is what I call a Battleship team: It's large, it hits hard and it can take a beating, but it's a pain in the ass to fix. I have a guaranteed Shinryuu victory (just use Wonder Wand to Berserk, then have everyone Image and rail on it), and I don't see any major obstacles outside of Greg being a hassle in the first two fights. But my team is already at Level 25, which means I can probably breeze through a lot of World 2 without having to do too many fights. World 3 might be a bigger concern, especially Odin, given the Pixel Remaster fucking with ATB in an unfavorable way. I'll certainly have to grind to Level 40-ish because of Almagest. But it'll still be a relatively decent time. Plus, I already have 22 Elixirs, which is typically the number I have at endgame/Phoenix Tower, and I just got my Earth job.

One thing I'll say about the Pixel Remaster: Of the three SNES-era FFs that got new arrangements, I think V's was the strongest by a country mile. I almost feel like it's common knowledge that Uematsu has a soft spot for FFV, given the amount of music he creates based from that game outside his official work. It kind of shows here, where every song was given an exceptional amount of attention in terms of arrangement. On top of that, there's this interesting level of detail throughout all the songs. Example, the World 1 overworld theme: The first half of the song plays similarly to how the SNES/PSX version of the soundtrack played. The second half sounds more like the GBA version though. That's...kind of brilliant.

I've yet to run into any serious issues, other than a weird display glitch or two (and I think something crashed? I forget). It should be a good going.

[KobaBeach]

Okay, so I started playing an Idea Factory game because I want to see how much of the Neverland series (not to be confused with the Lufia/Energy Breaker people, they are good boys and girls) I could withstand and the first game, Spectral Tower, is a floor based roguelike, right?

Well here's the floor amounts:
Goblin Tower - 10
Robber Tower - 20
Queen Rose Tower - 100
Spectral Tower - 1000
The Final Tower - 10000 (post game dungeon?)

Japanese nerds were right when they said this was fatigue work. It's hilarious because outside of this it's an inoffensive, if super easy, Roguelike.

Anyway I'm at the Robber Tower rn. I'll try to attack Queen, Spect and Final with savestates to maintain my progress whenever. I don't really savescum in roguelikes because unlike blobbers, it lessens the game for me (no shame to people who need it), but just maintaining some midpoints here and there should be handy.

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I should play the Four Job Fiesta too but having to slot something during the summer is so inconvenient, I'll just do an unofficial one.

EDIT: At Testa in South Sularto in Arc the Lad III and I've confirmed that someone at Working Designs just removed the "There have been some guys who come for Lavender. Guess love is for everyone, huh?" dialog and replaced it with "I get enough kicks from the pretty ladies, I just stay away from Lavender.". Lavender is a drag queen/okama. They also added Alec saying "I think I need to wash..." after Lavender gets too frisky with Alec and co. when showing them around.

Hate.

White liberals, I guess. Really fun game, though. 32/106 Jobs cleared, 18/72 Wanted Monsters exterminated.